Hubspot’s research demonstrates that yes, indeed, they do. Hubspot’s analysis of a business’s blogging efforts showed that content published in the past 12 months gained an increasing number of contacts as time went on:

Top results on Google correlate with content longer than 2,000 words. In other words, the highest ranked pages on Google also have the most content!

Plus, there’s the social sharing aspect to keep in mind. The longer your content, the more social shares you earn.

Finally, there’s the bit about conversions, which is where I want to settle for just a moment.

When you have higher search results, you get more search traffic.

When you get more search traffic, you gain more conversions.

Let’s say your blog’s conversion rate is around 2% at the moment.

If 1,000 people visit your ordinary blog article (1,000 words), two of them will sign up for a free trial.

A long-form article, however, gets more traffic than the average blog article. Using the share metrics as a benchmark, we can safely assume that a long-form article (3000+ words) gets 100% more traffic than a shorter article (0-1,000 words).

Now, you have 2,000 people visiting your content—twice as many! And you have twice as many conversions too!

This introduces a logical question: How long is long-form content?

I hate to be “that guy,” but the answer is: as long as it needs to be.

You were looking for a word count, right?

Okay, I’ll give it to you, but you have to listen to my little lesson first.

I—and Google and the rest of the world tend to agree with me—am more interested in the quality of your content than the actual length of said content.

If you spin out 5,000 words of crap, you’ll destroy your conversions, not improve them.

As cliche as it sounds, quality is more important than quantity.

If you’re looking for a word count, I suggest 2,500 words or more are sufficient for outranking your competitors, turning on the traffic floodgates, and boosting your blog conversions.

The Lesson: Crank out long-form content on your blog, and you will double your conversions.

Navigational: The user is trying to get to a specific website. For example, “quick sprout blog.”

Informational: The user is trying to learn information. For example, “how do I increase my blog’s conversion rate.”

Transactional: The user is trying to purchase or make a transaction on something. For example, “Coupons for Huggies diapers.”

Google is pretty good at determining the type of query you’re using and the best results to provide.

When I searched for airline tickets, Google provided a quick and accessible way to make a purchase based on my transactional query.

When you’re creating long-form blog articles, you are most likely targeting informational queries. These informational queries often bring up blog articles. (Transactional queries, by contrast, usually bring up product pages.)

But we still need to understand the following: What does user intent have to do with conversions?

The answer lies within the buying funnel.

The buying funnel is a model that marketers use to demonstrate how users get around to purchasing something.

The iterations of the buying funnel are many. But the basic idea is this:

The prospect becomes aware of the product.

The prospect begins to consider, research, or compare different products.

Next, sort the results by position so you can find out what queries you are ranking for. Click “Position” in the results table:

In the table, look for queries that have a CTR (click-through rate) of 30% or above.

This means that 30%+ of the users who typed in a given query clicked on your results when they appeared in Google. We can safely assume these users are interested in your content.

For this website, I notice that a high percentage of users are clicking on the result for “django benefits.”

The query is django benefits. This is an informational query.

To satisfy user intent, I should provide comprehensive information on that topic.

You can visit the SERP the query directs to by clicking the icon next to the query.

From there, you can navigate to the relevant page on your website.

This foundational technique is helpful. If you give users the kind of content they want (their intent), you will provide a way for them to convert.

But that brings us to a really important point: How do you get them to convert?

The remainder of this article will show you some super practical ways to score those conversions.

Content is king. Keywords are necessary. User intent is important.

But what about the actual conversions?

Create a low-barrier-to-entry conversion action

So far, we’re driving relevant traffic to your page.

Now that we have those readers, we want them to convert.

The definition of conversion is pretty simple:

“The point at which a recipient of a marketing message performs a desired action.”

When you ask for a conversion, you’re not asking your blog reader to pull out their credit card and give you their money. You’re simply asking them to take the next logical step.

Often, this is an easy, low-cost, and logical way to take the relationship to the next level.

Here are some common conversion actions. Notice that each of these takes a few seconds and clicks:

Email subscription

Free trial

Download a resource

Facebook like

Twitter follow

LinkedIn follow

Pinterest follow

Instagram follow

Google Plus circle

YouTube subscription

Slideshare subscription

Let’s take a look at a few of these. Each of these are located on a long-form blog article.

The Content Marketing Institute invites you to subscribe to their mailing list and to read their e-book. This is an example of conversion action that includes email subscription and downloading a resource:

Buffer invites you to get started with a free account. The header pictured below is persistent, meaning you’ll always see it as you scroll through the article:

The Optimizely blog invites you to get a copy of their customer stories:

The Marketing Sherpa blog uses a shadowbox popup to invite you to subscribe to their mailing list:

Qualaroo uses a “Start Free Trial” button in their header:

Kissmetrics asks you to try their SaaS:

Invitations to social accounts are so common that it’s easy to overlook them.

In the Kissmetrics screenshot above, you can see a list of social icons on the right side.

The Content Marketing Institute uses an entire section on their sidebar to ask for social connection:

Each of these conversion actions is simple, easy, and painless.

That’s what you want to do. You want to make it easy for the reader to become a regular.

Here are some rules of thumb for effective low-barrier conversion actions:

1. If you use a form, limit it to three fields

I suggest only one field (an email address) if possible, but this depends on the product you’re selling.

SumoMe asks for only a user’s email address:

For creating an account—a different purpose—they’ve included three fields on the form:

It’s still easy, fast, and effective.

2. Make it appealing and persuasive

Don’t lie, cheat, or steal when you’re asking for a conversion. Just be honest and ask for what you want.

The right kind of users want to convert. But sometimes, it takes a little persuasion and some good old-fashioned appeal.

Here’s an example.

If you read my blog, you’ve probably seen this little box:

I’ve put that call-to-action box in my content because I want to persuade you to get your website analyzed.

You have a choice. I’m not twisting your arm.

But I am trying to persuade you.

And the reason I keep using that box is because it’s working!

3. Ask for what you want

You know the expression “ask and you shall receive.”

It’s true in online marketing.

Asking for the user to convert is a gift. They want to do it.

All you have to do is ask.

A business that uses free consults as part of its sales cycle should offer the user a free consultation. Here’s an example:

A company that provides heat mapping analytics should ask users to create a heatmap, like this:

A chiropractor can offer users a free exam and x-ray:

The conversion action you choose depends on what you’re trying to accomplish.